Police, firemen, miners and other who are required to enter or work in areas of little or no ambient illumination must carry with them some form of artificial light in order to perform their work and avoid hazards. Battery operated electric lamps are commonly used for this purpose.
Such workers typically also use safety helmets to protect their heads from falling rocks, timbers, tools, debris and other objects. In order to leave the worker's hands free, it is desirable to attach a battery operated electric torch to the protective helmet so that it shines forward in the direction in which the user faces when the helmet is worn in its normal position. A miner's lamp is a familiar example, in which an electric torch in the form of a head lamp a few inches in diameter and having a bulb and reflector is mounted on or in the forward portion of the miner's protective helmet and powered by a rechargeable battery pack generally attached to the miner's belt or coat. An electric wire connects the head lamp to the battery pack. A switch is provided to allow the head lamp to be turned on or off as the user desires. Such head lamp arrangements are well known and have been adapted to helmets worn by firemen, policemen, emergency rescue personnel and others who must work in dark places and have their hands free. A version for use by a fireman is shown in U.S. Pat. 994,094 which is incorporated herein by reference.
While prior an versions of helmet mounted head lamps are useful, they suffer from a number of disadvantages. For example, the area of illumination is typically limited to a cone shaped region directly in front of the user which is narrower than the typical person's field of view. Under these circumstances hazardous objects at the periphery of a person's vision are not illuminated by the head lamp, thus exposing the user to unexpected injury from objects outside of the comparatively small illuminated area or requiring the user to constantly move his or her head from side to side and up and down to sequentially illuminate adjacent regions. A second problem with present day helmet mounted head lamps is that they often interfere with a protective face mask attached to the user's helmet. For example, the head lamp prevents the protective mask from being raised out of the way if it becomes damaged or interferes with the user's ability to help a victim (e.g., when mouth to mouth resuscitation is needed). Under these circumstances, the user may need to remove the helmet or tip it back out of the way, thereby increasing his or her own risk of injury because its protective function has been compromised.
Thus, a need continues to exist for an improved head lamp for use on safety helmets or other head gear and which illuminates a region approaching the extent of the human eye's peripheral vision, which does not interfere with retraction and/or use of a protective face mask, and/or which does not create a protrusion which is easily snagged by foreign objects the user may encounter.